CENX, a  provider of  service orchestration  solutions  for software‐defined  networks,  has  announced  that,  together  with  Spirent,  it  has  demonstrated  orchestration  of  Voice  over  Long  Term  Evolution  (VoLTE)  services  over  virtualized  network  infrastructure. In tandem with CENX’s  Cortx  Service  Orchestrator,  service  providers  now have  a  single  pane  of  glass  for  visualization  of  their  service  topology,  network  utilization  and  performance  metrics,  to examine qualityof service high and adjust.

VoLTE  deployments  are  still  in  their  infancy,  with  only  14  operators  in  7  countries  worldwide  having launched  commercial  service. Service  providers  are  also  using  Network  Functions  Virtualization  (NFV)  technology  to  build  out  their  VoLTE  infrastructure  most  cost-effectively. Operators must have  the  tools  to  manage  service  performance  across  both  physical  and  virtual  network  elements.

The development will allow telco data centres to use big data analytics  to examine degraded  performance  due  to  severe  VoLTE  traffic  loads,  sectionalize  the  issues  between  the  physical  and  virtual  domains and  take  corrective  action.

Nan Chen, executive vice chairman CENX (who is also president of the Metro Ethernet Forum) said: “This is a major step forward for the telco data center. We work with Tier 1 and wireline service providers and they will be delighted. NFV comes as a software package running on a shared server vs a “box”. Services will cross network composed of both physical NEs and VNFs.”

Tangible business benefits

The tangible business value delivered, CENX claims, includes more than 40 percent savings in operations and implementation; 70 percent improvement in inventory accuracy and 80 percent reduction in services turnaround time – a veritable revolution for telco data centers.

Chris  Purdy, CTO of CENX said: “This  demonstration  proves  that,  with  the  right  tools  in  hand,  management  of  complex  network transformations  doesn’t  itself  have  to  be  complex.”

Orchestrator is able to provide a unified view of the mobile network from an end-to-end  VoLTE  services  perspective,  across  both  physical  and  virtual  elements. It  is  claimed that this is a first  in  the  industry.